Your Once and Final Supreme Double Impeachee

[Brian-E]

Here's what a bishop has to say in favour of Brett Kavanaugh. He makes various points, but this one leaves me gobsmacked:

Moral theology — indeed the law of God — requires us to not think any evil of him beyond what is evident. If there is insufficient evidence to make a certain judgement of guilt, then we must hold him guiltless. If there is sufficient evidence to cause suspicion of guilt, then we may lawfully suspect him. To think evil of someone without sufficient evidence is a sin of rash judgement, and it is a mortal sin if the matter is serious. This matter is certainly serious.
In this case, however, it is Judge Kavanaugh’s word against Dr. Ford’s word. Moral law requires us, in that parity of contradictory testimony, to take the word of the superior, which in this case would be that of Judge Kavanaugh.

The article contains no indication of what leads Bishop Sanborn to the conclusion that Judge Kavanaugh is "superior" to Dr. Ford. My mind boggles.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

Here's what a bishop has to say in favour of Brett Kavanaugh. He makes various points, but this one leaves me gobsmacked:

The article contains no indication of what leads Bishop Sanborn to the conclusion that Judge Kavanaugh is "superior" to Dr. Ford. My mind boggles.

My mind is bogged in The Slough of Despond.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

Here's what a bishop has to say in favour of Brett Kavanaugh. He makes various points, but this one leaves me gobsmacked:

The article contains no indication of what leads Bishop Sanborn to the conclusion that Judge Kavanaugh is "superior" to Dr. Ford. My mind boggles.

Hmm. The most obvious reason is, he's male. It's in the Bible! In Timothy 12, in a letter from Paul, it says

12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

At the time of the founding of the republic, women were treated as being morally inferior to men. Married women were treated like dependent children or slaves. Womens' rights regarding inheritance, property ownership, contracts, standing to file lawsuits, etc etc etc were extremely limited. And, of course, women were not allowed to vote. Widows were not allowed sole custody of their own children. In fact, being a widow was to be in a very bad situation.

Even in this day and age, there are Americans who think, on religious grounds, that women should not be allowed to serve on juries, since that could put them in a position of authority over a man (i.e. deciding the guilt or innocence of a male defendant).

[kladner]

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-a8570021.html

Bless me, Father, for I have, uh… just bless me, OK?
I bless you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

How long has it been since your last confession, my son?

Uh, wow, that feels like an attack, Father. I could ask you the same question.

Pardon?

Are you going to answer the question or not, Father? How long has it been since your last confession?

I don’t know why you’d ask me that, son. I think we best move on. What is it that you came here today to confess?

Confess? Who says I have anything to confess, Father?

Well, you did voluntarily walk into a confessional this morning, didn’t you?

I don’t like what you’re implying, Father. I have my calendar right here, and it shows exactly where I’ve been all morning. You can see it clearly says I had skis with Judge, Tom, PJ, Bernie and Squi this morning.

[ewmayer]

America's new aristocracy lives in an accountability-free zone | David Sirota | Opinion | The Guardian

But the most interesting story I read in relation to l'affaire Kavanaugh is this one by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the UK Telegraph (I link to a Yahoo pick-up of the article as it is non-paywalled):

My sinister battle with Brett Kavanaugh over the truth

[kladner]

[from a side link to the above story]
"Minutes after Sen. Susan Collins announced her support for Brett Kavanaugh, the site to fund her [yet to be determined] opponent was so overwhelmed that it crashed"
https://www.yahoo.com/news/minutes-s...205616100.html

A website collecting money to fund a rival to Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine crashed on Friday shortly after she announced she would vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
The site was created to raise money for whoever decides to challenge Collins for her Senate seat in 2020.

(emphasis mine)
Small comfort, but a fitting rebuke. May the effort take her down.
I guess these women, or someone like them, were not pleased by the treachery against all women (and everyone else.)
Below: The Norns

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kladner

[from a side link to the above story]
"Minutes after Sen. Susan Collins announced her support for Brett Kavanaugh, the site to fund her [yet to be determined] opponent was so overwhelmed that it crashed"
https://www.yahoo.com/news/minutes-s...205616100.html
(emphasis mine)
Small comfort, but a fitting rebuke. May the effort take her down.
I guess these women, or someone like them, were not pleased by the treachery against all women (and everyone else.)
Below: The Norns

Perhaps Nemesis could run, while the Erinyes, or the Three Furies ran her campaign.

Don't let anybody make you think God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with justice and it seems I can hear God saying to America "you are too arrogant, and if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I'm God."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr. in a speech on April 30, 1967 at the Ebenezer Baptist Church about the Vietnam War.

[kladner]

Scary stuff all.
These ladies are of the same family, as it were.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moirai

Then again-

All. The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about:
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
And thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace! the charm's wound up.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kladner

Scary stuff all.
These ladies are of the same family, as it were.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moirai

Ah, the Three Fates. [squints at text surrounding illustration]
My Latin is practically nonexistent. Martial, Epigrams to the rescue!

O cui Tarpeias licuit contingere quercus
et meritas prima cingere fronde comas,
si sapis, utaris totis, Colline, diebus
extremumque tibi semper adesse putes.
lanificas nulli tres exorare puellas
contigit: observant quem statuere diem.
divitior Crispo, Thrasea constantior ipso
lautior et nitido sis Meliore licet:
nil adicit penso Lachesis fusosque sororum
explicat et semper de tribus una secat.

Collinus, whose privilege it was to touch the Tarpeian oak leaves
and crown deserving locks with choicest foliage,
if you are wise, you will make the most of all your days and reckon that your last is ever at hand.
To no man’s prayers has it fallen to move the three wool-spinning maids;
they observe their appointed day.
Though you be richer than Crispus, more steadast than Thrasea himself,
more elegant than spruce Melior,
Lachesis adds nothing to the tale;
she unwinds the sisters’ spindles
and ever one of the three — cuts.

[kladner]

My Latin is practically nonexistent. Martial, Epigrams to the rescue!

Thanks for the link! I love parallel language formatting.

[kladner]

I am really afraid. This article is just one example that explicates the peril. It is easy to feel that we, and the world, are well and truly fscked. [OK. Spell check wants to substitute 'suckered' for 'fscked'. Both can be applied without conflict, but it is almost repetitive,depending on how one transliterates between different slang expressions.]
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10...trump-faction/

Despite the historic stakes of the ram-through appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States of an evident serial liar and alleged rapist, who loudly denounces his Senate questioners as a “left-wing conspiracy” – sniffing all the time as his habit – there has been no legal analysis of his abetted crimes of persistent false statements and declarations, and factional subversion of the rule of law and the US Constitution itself.

As law and moral philosophy professors writing just as the White-House-counsel controlled FBI ‘investigation’ is hidden under cover from citizens and the press, we are moved by duty to explain what has so far been lost in media melodrama, political cover-up at the highest levels, he-says-she-says reductions, and the politics of effectively usurping the rule of law in the United States.

Oh WTF. Here is a twofer. At least this one is not so sober and solemn as the previous piece.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10...-don-and-rahm/

Absurdity and Impunity Reign in the Time of Don and Rahm
Absurdity Reigns in the terrible time of Donald Trump. Just five days apart, the tangerine miscreation went from calling the right-wing Supreme Court appointee Brett Kavanaugh’s primary accuser, Dr. Christine Blassey Ford, a great person and a good witness to openly mocking her painful recollections of sexual assault in front of thousands of laughing white brutes in Mississippi.

The arch-sexist genital grabber-in-chief has a nasty habit of siding with men accused of beating and sexually abusing women: Roger Ailes, Rob Porter, Judge Ray Moore…the list goes on. I’m guessing that only Bill Cosby’s technical Blackness cost him a Trumpian soft pardon on epic sex crimes.

My cell phone made a strange noise and got the urgent message: “Presidential Alert…No Action is Required.”

I liked that. “No Action is Required. Continue to Live in Demobilized Isolation and Individualized Mass Consumerism. We’ve Got Things Under Control.”

This 'alert' creeped me out Big Time, and still does. It is a display of power, and an implied threat.